The Chinese government has built up the world’s largest known online disinformation operation and is using it to harass US residents, politicians, and businesses—at times threatening its targets with violence, a CNN review of court documents and public disclosures by social media companies has found.
The onslaught of attacks – often of a vile and deeply personal nature – is part of a well-organized, increasingly brazen Chinese government intimidation campaign targeting people in the United States, documents show.
The US State Department says the tactics are part of a broader multi-billion-dollar effort to shape the world’s information environment and silence critics of Beijing that has expanded under President Xi Jinping. On Wednesday, President Biden is due to meet Xi at a summit in San Francisco.
Victims face a barrage of tens of thousands of social media posts that call them traitors, dogs, and racist and homophobic slurs. They say it’s all part of an effort to drive them into a state of constant fear and paranoia.
I was speaking generally about foreign adversaries, and not the ones in the article (that I did read). Its not something we should really be arguing over, or for you to be so nitpicky over. Its not worth either of our time to do so.
The ORIGINAL comment made by you, that I replied to …
My only point was that not all foreign adversaries, regardless if they were mentioned in the article or not, act in one single way, that they have multiple motives/actions. Thats all. No mention was made by me of specific foreign adversaries. You assumed as much incorrectly, but I did not refer to them. I spoke generally.
I used the term Foreign Adversaries specifically because that’s what the article called the attackers. This is a thread about the article. You replied to a comment about the article and didn’t distinguish in your reply that you weren’t talking about the article. Only after I pointed out that you are supporting death threats, you are back tracking. But oddly your replies didn’t condemn the death threats but only made skewed comments like “You’ve discovered my nefarious plan! Curses!”
Your premise of “Let them talk.” is flawed. Talk can incite violence.
I think if anyone looks at the conversation they can see that your assumption was incorrect.
There’s no obligation to reply to a comment in relation to the article versus the comment directly itself. The article is a jumping off point, and not a hard-coded blueprint that everyone has to stick to.
Every Lemmy post about an article doesn’t stay just about the article, but branches out into a wider discussion about the subject that the article covers, and there’s no obligation for comments to stay specific to just the article, versus the subject.
You are incorrect in your assumption.
When you use phrases from an article but don’t say you mean something completely different, it’s your fault that you are misunderstood.
You claim that a government agent sending death threats (30 agents were responsible for 10,000 alt accounts used for harassment and death threats) would honestly engage in debate. Given how few actual people were behind the harassment, debate was impossible because the attackers were using automated tools to manage 10,000 accounts.
And continued silence from you on actually condemning death threats.
[Citation Required]
You were the one that took phrases that the article and op used and changed their meaning without informing anyone of what was going on your mind.
Don’t get huffy that people around you aren’t mind readers.
No, I did not. You assumed I was talking about certain individuals, I was talking about the general profession. If I was speaking specifically about those in the article I would have stated so explicitly, which is normally how language works.
No one is ever explicit when they’re talking generally, only when they’re talking about a specific part of it.
It’s really simple, and something that every human being (including myself) on this planet has done at one point or another. Just say “Sorry, I assumed incorrectly,”, and be done with it.
As I have mentioned before,…
But then you admit you did:
The assumption was made because the article and op used the phrase to mean one thing but in your mind, without telling anyone, it meant something else.
You’re being intellectually dishonest, and using a cheap debate tactic of deflection. You’re misrepresenting what I said.
I was responding to a comment, and not the article. I was not contradicting the article, I was not referring to the article. You made the mistake of assuming I was, when I did not.